Star Trek: 10 Episodes That Wasted An Incredible Premise

[TMC]

https://whatculture.com/trekculture/...-2?rf=homepage

Sometimes, despite their best efforts, these ideas in Star Trek don't stick the landing.

BY JACK KIELY
JANUARY 26TH, 2024

"All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by" (John Masefield not Herman Melville, in case you were wondering, Doctor McCoy). In essence, that's the incredible premise at the heart of Star Trek which has kept us watching week after week for over 50 years. 'Star' 'Trek' is the great idea; the rest is making the most of it. And, of course, space stations more than count too, with the Masefield quote on the Defiant's dedication plaque.

Such is the nature of the creative process and of television that even some of Star Trek's now most celebrated episodes didn't go from concept to screen unchanged. For what was the best of The Best of Both Worlds, writer Michael Piller admitted in Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages that, "We had no idea it was really a Riker story when we started out," and that it took a while to think up Locutus.

The reverse, then, is also true. Sometimes the most extraordinary premises fail to come to fruition in the episodes they've been given. Worse, there are those ideas that should have shaken the galaxy, and the franchise, to its core, but were never spoken of again (new episodes pending). The mystery of The Preservers was wasted on whatever The Paradise Syndrome turned out to be, and the mind-blowing revelations from perhaps the same species in The Chase were relegated to archaeological curiosity.

None of the above makes for a bad episode either, just a lost opportunity. In the end, we should all just be glad that A Briefing with Neelix/Good Morning, Voyager was apparently axed.